


Best left unsaid

by ThatOneGirlBehindYou



Series: DemonicBae-verse [5]
Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Afterlife, Beast Wirt, Death, M/M, Pinescone Week 2019, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-11-22 11:40:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20873609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOneGirlBehindYou/pseuds/ThatOneGirlBehindYou
Summary: There must always be a Beast in the Unknown. Wirt has come to understand this.Written for day 1 of Pinescone Week 2019: Secrets





	Best left unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I just wanted an excuse to do some worldbuilding for this verse, so I goaded Chamiryokuroi into co-hosting a Pinescone week. Prompts and entries can be found at [the Pinescone Week 2019 blog](https://pinesconeweek2019.tumblr.com/) .
> 
> This is set *after* [How to propose in Gravity Falls: a 5+1 story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14620440)

_Wirt doesn't dream, not really._

_He hasn't dreamed ever since the night before Halloween all those years ago, and he doubts he ever will again, as long as he's on earth._

_Instead, when he lays his head to rest and closes his eyes, he opens them again a second later and he's standing in the middle of a field that's always freshly harvested, no matter the season back in Gravity Falls._

_The villagers come to find him fairly quickly every night, the turkey chariot bouncing across the field as they greet him. It's been a long time since people have hidden from the Beast. _

"So you never go back to the Unknown?" Dipper asks. They're laying on his bed, with Wirt resting his head ovr Dipper's stomach.

"Sometimes" Wirt says, after a moment's hesitation."I don't like it there"

"It's your realm though isn't it?" Dipper's hand traces idle circles on the back of his neck and Wirt fights the pleasant drowsiness it brings. It's too early. "It cannot function without you"

"It can't" his eyelids are heavy, and Wirt doesn't want to go yet, but he's losing the battle.

"What do you do there?" Dipper's voice is full of that curiosity that's so defining of him.

"You wouldn't like it if I told you"

_The newcomers are usually full of questions._

_Wirt does his best to explain. He'd love it if going back to the Unknown didn't immediately revert him back to his real form, because it scares the hell out of them more often than not._

_They always calm down, eventually, and then they start the sorting._

_He can feel it like one feels the warmth of the sun, as he walks through them. Usually they're already past the threshold, and only need to be guided. Those full of love and hope feel half gone already. Wirt wishes them well, and gives them each a single leaf from his antlers to pay their passage at the ferry, then sets them on their way. Someone from Miss Langtree's school comes to guide them to the river, and they pass. Then come the ones that fear. They've done wrong, they've caused pain, and they're afraid of the consequences that have finally caught on to them. They usually already have a leaf or two growing somewhere on their bodies by the time Wirt gets to them._

_"Would you do different?" he asks. They always say yes, but Wirt always knows if they lie. The ones that don't get a smile, and Wirt touches their forehead and tells them he's proud as they fall asleep. Then the villagers take them outside and bury them in the fields. They will become the next harvest, and be reborn to try again. Those who do lie though, Wirt looks upon with pity, and sends outside. Most of the times they refuse or they struggle, but Auntie Whispers and her bell come soon enough to take them deeper into the woods. The lantern needs oil to burn, and Edelwood trees are not born of seeds._

_Then there's the ones that are like him, or rather like Greg. Neither here nor there, these are the ones Wirt has to be more careful about._

"Did you know?" Dipper starts one day. Wirt is having a bad day, and he cannot tell Dipper it's because a plane crashed with a hundred people inside. "Demons were not always seen as bad"

"Were we not?" Wirt asks. He feels empty. He doesn't want to go and explain to all these souls that their lives are over because a bolt got loose in a plane's turbine.

"It comes from the Greek "daimon", that means power" Dipper burrows in his chest. Wirt feels limp against him, but forces himself to wrap an arm around his form. "Departed soul. Divine power. _Guardian_"

_These Wirt sends on their way, and keeps an eye out through the night._

_He speaks to them, whispers words through the branches of the trees and in the murmur of winds. He speaks of home. Of lakes and family, laughter in the sun, warm hugs in the cold. He speaks of away. Of peace and forgotten loved ones, eternity and rest._

_They always find their way, eventually._

_Some drift towards the meadow, or fall asleep in one of Mr. Quincy's many rooms, or at the tavern's bar. They wake up somewhere else, most times surrounded by people who didn't think they'd wake up again._

_Others stay, and those Wirt has to keep working with, after he's dealt with the rest. Some receive a leaf or a smile or a pitiful look and are sent on their way._

_The rest... They stay. The Unknown is always growing, and there's always place for more._

"I like guardian" Wirt says. He ought to sleep soon. People are waiting for him.

"I think it fits you" Dipper nods against his chest. "I love you, you know?"

Wirt does, and he says it back. Some other things, he cannot say yet.


End file.
